On August 11, 1965 Price rushed from her home in South Los Angeles to a nearby traffic stop where a white California Highway Patrol officer had pulled over her son Marquette Frye. Accounts vary on what set off the scuffle, but a patrolman hit Frye on the head with a baton and his mother jumped on another officer.

A crowd witnessed their arrests. After rumors spread that police had roughed up a black woman, angry mobs formed and six days of deadly rioting ensued.